Qí jīng bā mài kǎo 奇經八脉攷
An Investigation of the Eight Extraordinary Channels by 李時珍 (Lǐ Shízhēn, zì Dōngbì, hào Bīnhú shānrén, 1518–1593, 明)
About the work
Lǐ Shízhēn’s specialist treatise on the Eight Extraordinary Channels (奇經八脈 qí jīng bā mài) — the additional 8 channels beyond the standard 12 regular channels (12 正經): the Yīnwéi 陰維, Yángwéi 陽維, Yīnqiāo 陰蹻, Yángqiāo 陽蹻, Chōng 衝, Rèn 任, Dū 督, and Dài 帶. The 12 regular channels are well-known to all; the 8 extraordinary channels are easily neglected by physicians. Lǐ specifically discusses the disease-source and treatment-method for each, supplemented with the discussions of various authorities, integrated into a systematic treatise. The work also creates an original Qìkǒu jiǔdào mài tú 氣口九道脈圖 (The Nine-Pathways Wrist-Pulse Diagram) elaborating the Nèijīng’s pulse-diagnostic doctrine. The work is praised by the SKQS editors as more thorough and philologically rigorous than 滑壽 Huá Shòu’s earlier Shísì jīng fāhuī 十四經發揮 (which had added the Rèn and Dū channels to the 12 regular channels for a total of 14 channels — the standard textbook in late-imperial Chinese medicine).
Tiyao
Qí jīng bā mài kǎo, 1 juan, by Lǐ Shízhēn of the Míng. The book holds that the human body’s channels have zhèng (regular) and qí (extraordinary). The hand three-yīn and three-yáng, the foot three-yīn and three-yáng — these are the 12 regular channels. The Yīnwéi, Yángwéi, Yīnqiāo, Yángqiāo, Chōng, Rèn, Dū, Dài — these are the 8 extraordinary channels. The regular channels are known to all; the extraordinary channels are easily overlooked by physicians. Therefore Lǐ specifically discusses the disease-source and treatment-method for each, integrating the various authorities’ discussions into a complete compilation. The origins-and-flows are precise and detailed, the longitudinal-and-latitudinal interconnections clear — truly indispensable for those who diagnose by pulse.
He also creates the Qìkǒu jiǔdào mài tú, elucidating the Nèijīng’s meaning and providing the diagnostic method in detail — eminently capable of bringing forth what predecessors had not yet revealed.
Examining: the early Míng Huá Shòu had composed the Shísì jīng fāhuī in 1 juan; beyond the 12 channels he added the Dū and Rèn channels. The old base text was appended to the head of Xuē Jǐ’s Yī àn (case of two recensions: one without this work). Medical practitioners took it as a measuring-line. Shízhēn’s book is more refined-and-precise — but both are based on the Língshū and Sùwèn in tracing the threads-and-strands and obtaining the original-and-end. From this we know that the learning of solid evidence proceeds from textual investigation by progressive layering and refinement (徵實之學由於考證逓推逓宻) — even in a single technical art, this is so.
(Respectfully verified, 3rd month of Qiánlóng 44 [1779]. Chief Compilers Jì Yún, Lù Xīxióng, Sūn Shìyì; Chief Collator Lù Fèichí.)
Abstract
Composition window: 1572–1593. The work was probably composed in the same Wàn-lì-period as the Běncǎo gāngmù and Bīnhú màixué, in Lǐ Shízhēn’s late mature period. The exact date is uncertain; the work circulates with the other two as a corpus.
The work’s significance:
(a) The systematic Eight-Extraordinary-Channels treatise: the most thorough pre-modern Chinese treatise on the qíjīng bā mài. Through this work, the 8 extraordinary channels — particularly the Chōng, Rèn, and Dū — became standard parts of late-imperial Chinese acupuncture and physiology pedagogy.
(b) The Qìkǒu jiǔdào mài tú original diagram: Lǐ’s nine-pathways wrist-pulse diagram is one of the more sophisticated late-Míng pulse-diagnostic visualizations, integrating multi-channel pulse-reading with the wrist-position diagnostic standard.
(c) The Huá Shòu / Lǐ Shízhēn comparison: the SKQS editors’ note that Lǐ Shízhēn’s work is “more refined-and-precise” than Huá Shòu’s earlier 14-channel treatise represents a careful philological assessment of the two principal pre-modern Chinese channel-system treatises.
(d) The “evidential learning” methodological remark: the SKQS editors’ closing observation — “the learning of solid evidence proceeds from textual investigation by progressive layering and refinement” — is an explicit endorsement of kǎojù xué (evidential research) methodology applied to medical-textual scholarship. The remark is methodologically interesting, locating Lǐ Shízhēn’s work in the broader Qīng-period commitment to evidence-based scholarship.
The catalog meta dynasty 明 is correct.
Translations and research
- No substantial Western translation of this specific work. The work is treated in the broader scholarship on Lǐ Shízhēn:
- See KR3e0079 for principal references on Lǐ Shízhēn (Unschuld 2021–, Needham 1986, Métailié 2015, Nappi 2009).
- Despeux, Catherine. “L’évolution des conceptions du corps et de l’embryologie dans la médecine et la religion chinoises,” Cahiers d’Extrême-Asie 8, 1995. Treats the 8-extraordinary-channels tradition.
- Mǎ Jìxīng 馬繼興, Zhōng-yī wénxiàn xué 中醫文獻學, Shànghǎi: Shànghǎi Kēxué Jìshù Chūbǎnshè, 1990 (entry on the Qí-jīng bā-mài kǎo).
Other points of interest
The Eight Extraordinary Channels — Chōng, Rèn, Dū, Dài, Yīnwéi, Yángwéi, Yīnqiāo, Yángqiāo — are one of the most distinctive Chinese physiological concepts. They function as connective-and-regulatory channels overlying the regular 12-channel system, and are particularly important in women’s medicine (the Chōng and Rèn channels regulate menstruation) and in qìgōng / Daoist body-cultivation (the Rèn and Dū channels are the principal axial channels of internal-alchemical practice).
The 14-channel system (12 regular + Rèn + Dū) used by Huá Shòu’s Shísì jīng fāhuī and elaborated in modern TCM acupuncture is one model; Lǐ Shízhēn’s full 20-channel system (12 regular + 8 extraordinary) is another, more comprehensive but less commonly used in clinical practice. The two models continue to coexist in modern TCM literature.